


On Whom My Wishes Hang

by letters_of_stars



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, High Fantasy, M/M, Tentacles, but not the sexy kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:03:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letters_of_stars/pseuds/letters_of_stars
Summary: His entire life, Nagisa has been told to not go near the lake in the wood. A monster lives there, great and terrible, and to see it would only grant instant death. He is resigned to live a simple farm life, free of adventure.His entire life, a monster has lived in the wood, the last of his kind in a world that hunts down the fairy-folk. He is resigned to be alone forever.They were never meant to meet.





	On Whom My Wishes Hang

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a little prompt for the Reigisa Exchange 2018 (prompt being tentacles) and then...I realized I wanted to make something more of it.  
> I've been writing fic for seven years and it's taught me a ton and just generally been really really fun! But now I think it's time I focus on my own original work, and I couldn't think of a pairing I'd rather write my last big fic for than Rei and Nagisa.  
> So I hope you can look forward to reading this, because I'm very excited to say goodbye to writing fic through the story I want to share here. <3

The day the Red Men came, the monster was scooped up into his father’s arms and borne right down to the bottom of the lake, where the silt clogged his gills and clouded his eyes. He couldn’t cry out, could barely see, could hardly breathe, but still his father clutched him close and would not let go. And as the water clouded such a vivid red even the monster could see, his father pressed the monster’s face into his chest so all he knew was the rapid beating of his father’s heart. So fast. So fast. The monster had never known his father to be so frightened.

The two of them stayed hidden beneath the water for hours upon hours, until the water darkened with night and then grew light again. Only then did the monster’s father let go of his son and gesture for him to stay hidden. But the monster couldn’t stay. He followed his father up to the surface and poked just the very top of his head above the water. Just in time to know that not all the Red Men had gone.

The net was wrapped tight around his father’s torso, pinning his arms and searing his skin with iron. A single Red Man stood upon the bank, one hand yanking with incredible strength upon the net while the other jabbed a spear into his father’s body, making the blood gush forth and stain the water even more. The monster ducked down back beneath the water as if when he looked back up, this would all be over. But when he did check back above the surface, his father still fought the Red Man, and there was a pile of bodies tossed onto the bank of the lake. Like nothing. Like trash. All his own kind, left to rot in the open air.

The monster swam as quietly as he could over to where he found his mother, her eyes wide open and completely vacant. The monster poked her cheek. Nothing. And soon his father would go the same way. Except that the Red Man didn’t realize that the monster was still alive.

The tears ran salty and painful down his skin as the monster crawled up onto the land, using the corpses of his kind as cover. The sand muffled his movements as he snuck around the lake, ducking behind logs and rocks, his child size perfect for this one thing. The Red Man’s attention was focused solely on his father, which is why he didn’t notice the monster until it was too late. A single tentacle snaked around his neck and pulled tight, while the monster used every other tentacle to force the Red Man into the water, kept pushing until he felt the Red Man’s face hit the bottom. The Red Man struggled and squirmed, released his grip on the net and flailed backwards with the spear, but the monster was such a small target, and soon all the Red Man did was release pathetic bubbles of air as the monster choked the life out of him beneath the muddied water. The frantic fight for life weakened and then stopped altogether. But the monster didn’t release his grip. He had to be sure. He had to be sure the Red Man was dead. It was only when his father came to pry his grip away that the monster reluctantly let go. His father’s skin was burned from the iron-spun net and his injuries from the spear would—as the monster soon knew—kill him within the course of a week. But for now they could bury their kind, down in the water where they would decompose naturally and join the life of the lake.

After all their kind were properly mourned, the monster returned to the corpse of the Red Man. His father was resting after applying mud to his wounds, but the monster could tell that something was very wrong. He dragged the Red Man from the water and studied the bloated face and the purple bruise livid around his neck.

The monster had done that. The monster had killed a human. And he felt nothing. No, that wasn’t true. He felt...happy. It was a disgusting feeling, but it was what filled him up top to bottom. The Red Men had taken his whole family, his whole race, and would likely take his father in a short time. The monster had no sympathy to spare for those who had done this.

He left the Red Man on the bank to rot and tended to his father until finally the wounds were too much to bear. The monster buried his father alone and then stared around an empty lake. What was he supposed to do now? His kind had lived here for centuries. He knew nothing else. He could try to follow the river, but what if there were more Red Men along the way? As lonely as he now was, the monster didn’t want to die of iron and spear.

So the monster settled into the lake where all his kind were buried, and prepared for a life spent completely alone.

 

* * *

 

_Don’t go near the water._

The warning may as well have been Nagisa’s first words, it was repeated to him so often.

“Don’t go near the water,” his mother called as he nabbed a roll and slab of cheese to spend the afternoon playing in the wheat fields. “And bring your cloak.”

“Don’t go near the water,” his sisters reminded him after the rain had passed. “Especially after a storm.”

“Don’t go near the water,” his father had practically roared after plucking the fishing rod from his hands when he was five years old. “Do you mean to be lost to us forever?”

For in the murky depths of the lake in the woods lived an ancient creature of the greatest evil, and none could look upon it and live.

Of course, that only made Nagisa more curious, but after the incident with his father, the whole village tended to keep an eye on him whenever he so much as glanced in the direction of the forest, which was a terrible thing to do to a growing boy.

And so the source of his adventures became the hayloft in the Hazuki barn, where he could hide for hours and play out every adventure that sprung into his head. Most revolved around the monster in the lake, of course, that forbidden jewel of his childhood. What sort of creature could it be? There was nothing to do but imagine what might be so terrible that no one from the village dared step foot near.

Gou and Ai, the only two children of the village his age, would join him in the hayloft sometimes. Ai didn’t want to think about the monster in the lake, but when he was called home, Nagisa and Gou would switch roles between monster and hero, battling each other with sticks and tossing hay and the occasionally unlucky chicken at each other until the monster was inevitably downed by the brave hero. When they got older, they would do it for real, they decided. If everyone else in the village was too afraid, then it was their duty as heroes to save the day. But then of course the heroes would be called home, and Nagisa spent most of his day helping with the farmwork, tending the flocks and hauling water, and then helping to shear wool and make cheese as he got a little older. This was just temporary of course. Everyone knew that farm boys were excellent raw material for heroes. He just needed to be a little older, a little taller, a little more muscular perhaps. Working a farm wasn’t his destiny.

And so Nagisa got a little older, not much taller—to his dismay—and while hauling water granted him some muscles, his talent for making cheese kept him from most of the heavy lifting.

Gou’s older brother ruffled his hair one night as Nagisa pouted near the goat pens. “You make the best cheese of everyone here! Be proud of that.” And then he flicked Nagisa in the forehead. Nagisa just kept pouting. Rin wouldn’t understand. He was the man of the house, responsible for cutting wood and carrying hay bales over his shoulder like it was nothing. He looked way more like a hero than Nagisa ever would.  

He popped the question one night when he was fifteen. “Dad, is there actually something in the lake? Wouldn’t the Red Men have taken it away?”

His mother shushed him. The Red Men were not a topic to be taken lightly. There were still some members of the village old enough to remember the Fae Summer well, but it was not something to speak of in their hearing.

Still, Nagisa crossed his arms and scowled. “Well, wouldn’t they have?”

His father stared at him from across the table and rubbed tiredly at the beard he hadn’t had time to trim for three days. “I don’t know, Nagisa. I was just a baby when it happened. Maybe the Red Men missed something. But there’s something evil about that forest, son, make no mistake.” He fixed Nagisa with his stare. “It’s not something for people like us to go disturbing. Just keep to your chores and don’t go near the water.”

And, well, things got busy. Things were always busy on a farm. And Nagisa’s sisters were all of age to marry, which meant in-laws and nieces and nephews and there were always crops to be tended and lambs to be birthed and endless cheeses to be made and before he really realized it, Nagisa had become a true farm boy. No heroic ambitions at all. The warning became something he tossed over his own shoulder when he saw the children running off that direction. Why? Because it had always been that way.

The most excitement he had was when he was selected to take the cart back and forth to the market in the Duchy of Burgam, a whole two days of travel by donkey pace. Two days there, two days to sell the village’s finest wool and cheese, and then two days back. A week of making cheese and sleeping in his own bed, and then he was off again, from when the snow first melted into the ground to when the first ice storms arrived at the end of Autumn.

The road to Burgam wasn’t exactly the height of adventure. Most of the journey followed a winding road through the farmlands of neighboring towns, and then there was a brief passage through a quite normal wood until the paths merged and Nagisa met with the other merchants travelling in for the market. That, at least, was a bit more fun. He was sure half the stories he was told were fake, meant to impress the little farm boy, but that was fine because _all_ of his own stories were completely made-up. You saw selkies off the western coast? Oh, that’s fine, I popped in and out of a fairy circle on the way here. Lovely folk, the elves. I’m planning a return visit on my way back home.

Or so he wished. A life selling cheese was hardly the adventurous life he’d dreamed of when he was young and terrorizing chickens. But then, probably no one dreamed of selling cheese. It just had to be done. The same way everyone in the village did what had to be done. He ought to count himself lucky he got to travel.

Gou invited herself along for a ride sometime in the spring one year, when the village boys had started getting a little too friendly. “I needed a break,” she groaned as she lounged back in the seat at Nagisa’s side. “No, I don’t want to go for a lovely stroll, your bouquet is obviously made from flowers in my own garden, and your breath makes me want to gag. Just leave me alone!”

Nagisa glanced up at the angry storm clouds above them. Barely out of the village, but they would need to stop if thunder started. The donkey spooked easily during storms, and he’d feel better with Loretta safely tied to a tree.

He always carried a tarp to wrap over the goods in case of bad weather, and it went much faster with Gou to help. They drove the wagon to the side of the road and led the donkey over to the nearest patch of trees where they could keep the wagon in their sights. Nagisa tied her harness to a sapling and grimaced at Gou. “Sorry. You’re going to get wet.”

Gou just shrugged and flopped to the ground. “Better than being stuck in the village with all those stupid boys.”

Nagisa sat down beside her and began playing with the grass. “You can come along with me more often if you like.” He’d been there through all three of his sisters courting. If Gou wanted out of that mess, he’d take her to Burgam every time if need be.

They could watch the rain approach as a grey sheet across the land, and then it washed over them, instantly soaking them both to the bone. The warm spring air disappeared instantly and it wasn’t five minutes before they were both shivering. Nagisa offered his arm and Gou accepted, tucking herself next to him with knees curled up to her chest. At least there was no thunder. Loretta seemed perfectly content to be tied to a tree while the rain pitter-pattered all over her coat.

From here, Nagisa’s eyes could follow the winding path all the way back to village, his view only slightly eclipsed by the forest. It was an awful, dark thing that seemed to drain the light from around it, nothing like the forests Nagisa would see on the way to Burgam. Of course, that had been part of the charm when he was a child, but now with his nieces and nephews running around, he could see why the adults had been so determined to keep him from it. Even if there wasn’t a creature in the lake hidden deep inside the trees, something about the forest seemed, well...evil. It curled around their little village like a waning moon, an abrupt end to all their fields and pastures, and it was only from farther away that Nagisa could see just how ominous that curling shape was, like an animal getting ready to strike.

Still, looking at it now, as always, he couldn’t help but feel pulled towards it, every bit of him yearning to run across the grassland until he reached those dark and forbidding trees and discovered whatever adventure waited inside.

“I think fairies must live there,” he declared, nodding at the forest in the distance. “And the lake is full of fairy dust. They lure you in and then drain the blood out of you.”

Gou shot him a look as she wrung out her hair. “What?”

Nagisa pointed. “The forest. The lake. The monster.”

“I thought we got tired of those games when we were ten,” Gou replied grumpily. Maybe she would have preferred being stuck inside with all those annoying boys afterall.

Nagisa gestured vaguely with his hand. “Yes, well, we did, but that isn’t a normal forest. You have to admit that. There’s something wrong about it. You want to know what I think?”

“I’m sure you’re going to—”

“I think it’s fae.”

Gou stopped wringing out her hair and squinted at him. “Okay. Sure. But it wouldn’t be fairies.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t think fairies even drink blood.”

“Well, have you ever met a fairy?”

Gou rolled her eyes. Of course not, and Nagisa knew it. “I just don’t think it’s fairies.”

“What would it be, then?” Nagisa realized that their voices had dropped to whispers. Fae species, just like the Red Men and the Fae Summer, weren’t topics exactly smiled upon in the village.

Gou took a moment to think, fingers tapping against her chin. “A selkie,” she said at last. “Or a bogle.”

Nagisa considered it. “Not a selkie. Someone told me selkies are friendly. But what the hell is a bogle?”

“They’re...I don’t know. I don’t know what they are. But my brother told me that they appear to travellers at night with lights like lanterns and lead them astray. And then eat them once they’re completely lost.”

Nagisa peered through the rain towards the forest. “But I’ve been on this road plenty of times and haven’t seen any lights.”

“A kelpie then,” Gou said firmly. “Which is a good reason to stay away.”  

“What’s a kelpie?” Nagisa was a bit embarrassed at having to ask again, but fae were just one of those things in his home that never came up.

“According to Rin, it’s an evil skeleton horse that lives in lakes and marshes and drags its victims underwater and kills them.”

“Rin knows a lot about fae, doesn’t he?”

“I think he just likes trying to scare me.”

Nagisa considered the idea of a kelpie. A murderous skeletal horse intent on dragging innocent people beneath the water and holding them there until their last breath bubbled up to surface? Yeah, he could get behind that.

“Anyway, this is all silly.” Gou rested her head against Nagisa’s shoulder. “Any fae, kelpie or not, would have been taken away by the Red Men.”

His father’s words from years ago rose automatically to his tongue. “Maybe the Red Men missed something,” he whispered, and this time his shiver had nothing to do with the rain.

Gou didn’t respond, so Nagisa let the conversation go. They spent some time drying out when the sun finally appeared again, and then climbed into the cart to continue to Burgam, the dark forest to their backs.

A kelpie, Nagisa decided, was a perfectly perfect explanation. And with that squared away, he could put the forest from his mind, and pretend he didn’t feel its draw.

 

* * *

 

The pressure to marry, Nagisa, Gou, and Ai decided, was getting ridiculous by the time they turned twenty. They gathered in the Matsuoka house to discuss the dilemma, because Gou’s mother made amazing bread and they obviously couldn’t solve this problem on empty stomachs.

Rin sat in a chair in the corner of the room, watching their meeting with a smirk. Twenty-two, and he managed to avoid the marriage problem because of having a widowed mother and a little sister to take care of. Completely unfair.

“I think I have a solution that will save at least two of us!” Gou declared, slamming her hands down on the table. She had that gleam in her eye Nagisa had learned to fear. “One of you pretends to court me!”

“What?” Ai squeaked.

“Not me,” Nagisa said just as quickly, and Gou threw the rest of her roll at him. “Gou,” he said calmly as he tore into the roll, “If it’s me, then everyone will know something’s up.” Which was perfectly true. Nagisa had made it very clear to anyone who would listen that he had absolutely no interest in marriage now or ever. “It’s more believable if it’s Ai. Besides…” He threw in a winning smile. “I don’t think there’s a single girl in this village who’d want me knocking on her door. No matter how my mother tries to lie about it.”

“That’s true,” Rin offered ever-so-helpfully from his chair, and this time when Nagisa threw the roll, it beamed Rin in the face.

 

* * *

 

Two more years passed of the same routine. Every other week except in winter, Nagisa travelled to Burgam to sell the wool and cheeses, and Gou and Ai put on an elaborate display of courtship that even Nagisa and Rin—who would often watch the show from the sidelines—had to admit was impressive. But at some point the village would expect Ai to ask for Gou’s hand, and Nagisa was waiting to see how they thought their way out of that one.

The forest still pulled at Nagisa in that unnatural way, but somehow with the image of a kelpie in his head, it was easier to ignore. An evil horse didn’t really make for a good adventure. Besides, Nagisa had other things to devote his time to. Such as three nephews and a niece.  

And then one day in late summer, the niece walked off into the wood with a fishing rod and a bucket for crawdads. She had been told plenty of times to not go near the water, as many times as Nagisa himself had been, but apparently the promise of crawdads was too great for a four-year-old. Nobody noticed she was gone until hours later, as dusk crept upon the village, and only when darkness had covered the fields and the farms did someone recall her wandering off in the way of the trees.

It was as if she had died already. Nagisa held his sobbing sister while her husband hid his face in his hands, shoulders shaking. “Won’t even have a body to bury,” someone muttered without a trace of tact and Nagisa’s sister froze up for a few seconds before collapsing entirely. Without Gou rushing to his help, Nagisa might have dropped her. He sent a vicious glance back at the one who’d spoken, and then let his sister lie in Gou’s lap as he stood. “I’ll go fetch her,” he said, and stalked off towards the barn to grab the Loretta the donkey. When he found his niece alive and well, she’d probably like a ride. When he found her dead, well, he didn’t really want to carry her corpse back in his arms. He struck his flint to light a lantern and grabbed a heavy cloak to wrap around his shoulders. The summer air was stifling even at night, but the forest was bound to be chilly.

His mother caught up with him as he exited the barn. She didn’t need to say anything at all; the conflicting emotions were all over her face. Could she risk her son to save her granddaughter’s life? Nagisa took her hands in his and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll be back,” he promised, and led the donkey off the farm, through the sheep pastures towards the forest. He didn’t seek out anyone else, because then this would actually feel like a goodbye.

This wasn’t goodbye. It was just a stupid skeleton horse.

The trees looked much taller up close. Nagisa stuck close to Loretta and held his lantern high as they left the familiar safety of the wheat fields and drew closer and closer to the forest. Whatever had pulled at Nagisa’s attention before seemed to double with each step he took to the point he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop. For the first time in his life, he was close enough to really study the forest, see each tiny detail that screamed of the unnatural. Now he knew why the forest appeared so dark; whatever lurked in the lake had infected the trees as well with a dark moss that wrapped around the trunks like a chokehold. The very leaves looked layered with ooze as well, dark as ink, and the ground itself, when Nagisa stepped onto the layer of grass and rotted leaves, was slick. He felt his feet sliding from under him and yanked too hard on the donkey’s harness to keep himself upright. One foot was secured against a tree root, the other against a rock, and Nagisa righted himself while whispering soothing words to Loretta and checking that his lantern had not gone out. The flame burned strong, and Nagisa allowed himself one glance back towards the village. It was if he’d stepped into another world altogether and he was glad of his cloak because, whether the air was actually colder or not, he couldn’t stop shivering. Nagisa turned away from the village and continued on into the forest, selecting each step with care. There was no path, but he tried to continue on in as straight a line as possible, unless he was forced to go around a clump of mossy trees or a thicket of thorny bushes. The ground sloped downwards almost alarmingly fast until he could not look back and see where had entered and the canopy above was too thick to allow stars or moonlight. He had only the lantern, which threw dancing shadows from behind every tree. Would his niece have even come this far? For crawdads? He’d imagine the forest wasn’t much more inviting in the day.

Why had he ever found this place so fascinating?

Eventually, Nagisa became aware of a small noise in between the sound of his steps and the donkey’s. He stopped, and the consuming silence enveloped him until the sound came again—water, splashing very gently against a shore. Nagisa looped Loretta’s harness around a branch and kissed her forehead gently before continuing on alone. If there truly was a monster waiting for him, he wouldn’t bring his donkey as bait. It would be a kelpie, he reminded himself as he held the lantern high and kept going, free hand tangling in bushes and bristles to keep himself from slipping. A nightmarish horse that would be terrifying, but something he could probably survive as long as he wasn’t caught off guard. The sound of lapping water got louder until Nagisa was sure he saw his lantern light gleam off of the surface of a lake. He let go of the undergrowth and slid down the last muddy length until his boots skidded across pebbles and sand and finally touched water. Here he was. Just himself, not a hero, hoping to come out alive.

This morning he’d been making cheese.

The lake was smaller than it had been in his daydreams, dark water choked by rotting logs and mossy boulders.

“Mia?” Nagisa called, peering out across the lake with the lantern held out as far as he could reach. “Mia, are you here?” He didn’t see any sign of a kelpie, but when he held the lantern nearer the ground, he could see little footprints not yet washed away by the ebb and flow. So she had definitely made it to the lake. Was she far beneath the surface now, being eaten by a monster? Nagisa began to follow the footprints around the lake. There were indents in the sand at points that suggested she’d spent some time there, and still no hoofprints.

Nagisa stopped to wipe the cold sweat from his brow. “Mia?” he called again, and stood up on an old uprooted stump, trying to look across to the other side of the lake. “Mia?”

The voice, when it came, nearly caused his heart to stop. “Er, yes, hello.”

His heart didn’t actually stop, but he did slip off the stump, landing in the sand and just managing to save the lantern before it rolled its way into the water. He made sure the light was strong and the oil hadn’t spilled before allowing himself to hurt, to clutch at his ribs and rub at where his head had hit a pebble.

“Are you still there?” the voice asked after a moment, and Nagisa snatched the lantern up before creeping back to the stump so he could peer over it. The light revealed nothing but reeds and an outcrop of rocks. Nothing except—there! A sudden shadowy movement, gone in an instant but he knew he hadn’t imagined it.

“Who are you?” he demanded, knowing his voice was a little on the squeaky side.

The thing, whatever it was, sighed quite dramatically, in a very human-like voice. Very human-like, male voice. “I was the one sitting here enjoying the night when you came intruding. Who are _you_?”

Something moved in the water. Nagisa felt his stomach drop, but then it was only a human arm. Two human arms, revealed in the light of the lantern. Attached to a human torso, with a human head. A human being, draped over one of the rocks in the lake.

“You shouldn’t swim in there,” Nagisa quavered, slowly standing up from behind the stump and walking to the edge of the water nearest the stranger. “Don’t you know there’s a monster?”

The boy, because it was a boy, around Nagisa’s age by the looks of it, peered at Nagisa and seemed to settle more comfortably against the rock. “Is there?”

“Yes, a kelpie.” Nagisa nodded, and then, for the sake of honesty, added, “I think.”

“Hmm,” said the boy, and then glanced over to the shore. “Are you here for her?”

Nagisa followed the boy’s gaze and there was Mia, curled up on a mossy patch on a slab of earth overlooking the lake. Nagisa dropped the lantern and tripped over his own feet rushing to her. He pushed her hair back from her cheek, but she just smiled in her sleep and hugged her empty bucket a little closer. Her fishing rod had been stuck into the sand nearby.

“She caught quite a few crawdads,” the boy in the water said in a peevish voice, “And then came over to me and let them all go at once.”

“Yes, she does that with insects too,” Nagisa said with a breathless laugh, picking Mia up and putting her over his shoulder. “Once she caught a whole jar of hornets and let them loose in the house. Didn’t get a sting on her either.” He took the bucket in his other hand and snatched up the little fishing rod when he walked back over to the sand. The lantern had landed softly nearby, and its flickering light washed over the scene, somehow so much less menacing with Mia safe in his arms. “I guess she has a strange way with animals. Look, I really don’t think you should be swimming in there!”

“Because of the monster?” The boy just seemed to get more comfortable against the rock.

Nagisa hissed and shifted Mia’s weight. She was not as light as she once was. “Yes, because of the monster. But also because it’s late and nobody should swim alone at night. You could drown.”

“Drown?” the boy echoed, as though it were a foreign concept.

“Yes!” He couldn’t do this. She was too heavy. Nagisa set Mia back down on the soft sand and dropped the bucket and rod. He took a few steps out into the lake and felt the water surprisingly warm as it leaked into his boots. The boy continued to study him, eyes narrowed. Still angry about the crawdads? Nagisa held his arms out, beckoning. “Look, I can’t just leave you here, not unless I know you’ll be alright. I’ve never seen you around the village before. Are you a traveller? Are you alone?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” the boy muttered, and turned his head to the side. “You can leave me here, I’ll be fine.”

Nagisa slowly wound his arms back up and placed his hands on his hips. “You’re a lone traveller swimming in a cursed lake. You won’t be fine.”

“It’s cursed now?” He sounded amused. “I thought there was a monster.”

“It’s both!” By now, Nagisa had the firm idea that this boy was leading him around by the nose. “And I won’t leave you here alone at night!”

The boy turned his head back to scowl in Nagisa’s direction. “You mean that, don’t you?” It wasn’t really a question but Nagisa nodded firmly anyhow. The boy grumbled inaudibly for a moment and then thrust a sudden bare arm towards the lantern on the sand. “I can’t see very well and that makes it worse. Can’t you dim it...or something?”

He was not about to go and dampen his only light source. Nagisa took a few steps to the side and grabbed the lantern, and then sidestepped the other way to hide it behind the tree stump. The lake instantly fell into darkness but Mia and Nagisa were still safe in the light. The boy splashed around his rock a little and then Nagisa heard him coming closer to shore, could see a shape moving among the shadows. There were...more splashing sounds than Nagisa would have expected. Like there was more than one person there. Especially as the boy reached the shallows. Splish splash splish, all around, echoing across the lake. Nagisa took a step backwards to stand guard in front of Mia, his heart leaping into his throat. “There’s a scenario you haven’t thought of,” the boy said in a voice almost like a sigh, and Nagisa watched some _thing_ crawl up out of the water onto the beach. “What if _I’m_ the monster?”

The tentacles squelched as they crawled up into the sand, curling around pebbles and small weeds with a curiosity devoid of the not-a-boy who came rising up out of the water, arms crossed and face set with annoyance. The tentacles were thick, all eight of them, and dark, glistening with water and what had to be slime, always moving, like they were something apart from the boy entirely, like some fairy curse had removed his legs and replaced them with these. He raised his eyebrows, obviously waiting for a reaction.

“You’re not a horse,” Nagisa managed after a moment. It was all he could think of. When the creature made no move towards him, he scraped together another sentence. “What are you?”

A tentacle curled about a tree root and caused the entire small sapling to tremble as the not-boy moved further up the beach. “A monster, apparently,” he replied sourly. Another tentacle picked up a stone, turned it back and forth, and then chucked it towards the water. Nagisa winced at the splash and scooped Mia up in his arms.

“What do you want?”

The monster huffed irritably. “Mostly? To be left alone. So can you take your little girl and go please? You’re trespassing in my home.”

Nagisa nodded and backed away from the water, leaving Mia’s toys and his own lantern behind. Then he paused. “That’s decent of you.”

A tentacle probed the sand for the lantern and held it towards Nagisa. “What did you expect?”

“To be eaten.” Nagisa shrugged when the monster gave him a horrified expression. “Well? Nobody knows what lives here, except for me and Mia now I guess. There are stories.”

“Well, the stories are gross. I wouldn’t eat you.” The tentacle pushed the lantern closer so that Nagisa could reach with one hand and take the handle. It was slick with whatever the tentacles exuded. He made a face. “I can’t help it!” the monster snapped, and then turned away in a flurry of slimy limbs. The water seemed to broil with movement as he slid down off the beach back into the lake. “Now go away, please.  And don’t tell people about this, or I might just have to abandon my sensibilities and actually eat you. I’ve enjoyed my privacy thus far and don’t want that to change.”

Nagisa tried to hold the lantern handle with as few fingers as possible. “Yeah, sure.”

The monster kept grumbling to himself as he retreated further and further into the lake until he was able to hide himself behind his rock once more. Baleful eyes stared at Nagisa, gleaming in the firelight. “And don’t come back.”

Nagisa laughed, a harsh bark of a sound, and turned to trudge back up away from the water, back to the donkey and home and normal people without creepy tentacles. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

 

* * *

 

He lasted three days before he went back. Well? A tentacle monster was living in the lake in the woods. Of course he couldn’t just forget that. The pull was almost a physical pain now. He had to go back.

There had been a presence, he’d told the village upon arriving back with Mia that night. He couldn’t say that there was nothing or other people might get the idea to go exploring, but he played up the feeling of dread and general wrongness hidden among those trees. And they would believe him over Mia’s stories of a tentacle man. No one would be going near the woods anytime soon. Except for him of course. He’d also sworn Mia to secrecy and she’d agreed with four-year-old glee.

He hopped off the wagon heading to Burgam at the point in the road nearest the woods and tied Loretta to a tree. He was usually lucky to meet one other traveller until the crossroads these days, so he didn’t worry about the wool and cheeses being stolen while he was gone. It was a bit of a trek through the untamed grasses to the forest, but the forest itself was more manageable in the daytime. The ground was less slick and the moss covering the trees—so menacing in the darkness—just looked soft. And without his niece’s life at risk, the journey in seemed so much more like a proper adventure than a terrifying venture into the unknown.

Plus, the monster hadn’t actually been very scary. The tentacles were unnerving, yes, but the monster didn’t look any older than Nagisa himself. And he hadn’t acted like a proper monster.

The ground leading down to the lake was still treacherously slippery and Nagisa scrambled for handholds the entire way down. He skidded the last little bit onto the beach, sending pebbles scattering into the water. Nagisa opened his mouth to call out, but the monster beat him to it.

“What are you doing here? I told you not to come back.”

Nagisa straightened up and peered across the lake to where the monster was hiding behind the same rock. “Well, I got curious about you.”

A few tentacles crept over the top of the rock. “What’s to be curious about? I’m a monster in the woods.”

The daylight even made the very heart of the forest lighter. The tentacles didn’t seem half as creepy. “Why do you live in the woods?” Nagisa asked.

“Because I was born here,” the monster grumped.

“Do you live all alone?”

“I do now.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no one else here to live with.”

“Couldn’t you move?”

The tentacles splashed almost playfully at the lake. The monster gave Nagisa a grim little smile. “I need water.”

Nagisa hummed and plopped down onto the beach with legs crossed. “Can you come closer?”

“Why?” The tentacles retreated, and it looked like just a normal boy peering at Nagisa from over the rock.

“Because you said the other night that you can’t see very well and I want to be able to have a real conversation with a real life monster.”

He grumbled some more but did, slowly, make his way around the rock. It was still erie watching the normal human torso give birth to the mass of writhing dark appendages, but Nagisa was getting used to it. The monster surged up onto the beach and stood on all eight legs, staring down at Nagisa with eyes narrowed. It was probably supposed to be intimidating, but Nagisa was used to being shorter than a lot of people and even more used to his sisters glaring at him, so the effect was pretty much lost.

“Do you have a name?” he asked.

After a moment of trying to stare him down, the monster relented. “Rei.”

Nagisa beamed up at him. “You’re not very scary, Rei, so you can stop trying.”

Rei spluttered and Nagisa laughed. From the waist up, this monster was actually sort of cute. He held up a hand. “I’m Nagisa.” After a moment, Rei took it. His skin was clammy and a bit chilly from the water, but nothing spooky about it. As they shook hands, the tentacles relaxed and spread until Rei was more at Nagisa’s level. One of the tentacles brushed Nagisa’s leg and he carefully didn’t react. He couldn’t be scared. “Are you the reason the forest is so weird?” he asked instead. “Do you curse it?”

Rei shook his head. “No. It’s an old magic.” His hand skimmed the edge of the water. “Very old, like blood magic. The kind that comes from deep betrayals or many deaths.”

“That counts as magic?” Nagisa curled his legs up to his chest and rested his chin atop. “I thought magic was...fairies and stuff.”

The word ‘fairies’ earned him another dark look. “You humans are ignorant.”

Nagisa returned the scowl this time. “Well, what am I supposed to do about it? I live with a bunch of humans. Who was I ever supposed to ask?” Before Rei could open his mouth to reply, Nagisa added, “Plus I don’t think you know how to tend flocks or birth lambs or make cheese and you pretty much just stay in your lake doing nothing but sulk so if I’m ignorant, you’re even worse.” He followed it up with a forced grin, which he’d always found made people angrier than a frown. And Rei did bristle at that, tentacles stirring and picking at pebbles and twigs.

“Why would I need to know how to make cheese? I don’t eat cheese.”

“Why would I need to know about magic? I don’t use magic.” Nagisa felt smug for about three seconds before the words sunk in. “Wait, you’ve never had cheese?”

Rei looked down at him with exasperation. “I live in a lake in the middle of a cursed forest. When would I have ever eaten cheese?”

“Ah.” Nagisa nodded. “Good point. So what do you eat? Fish?”

Rei shook his head. “Fish can’t survive the water. Too tainted. I eat snails, mostly. And crawdads.” The tentacles wiggled a little and curled. Simulating the hunt, Nagisa realized. Trying to help him understand.

“And you’re the only one left here?” he asked, and Rei’s face flickered into a deep sadness, just for a moment, before he schooled his features into something more neutral.

“Well, I was the youngest of my kind, so it makes sense that I would survive them all. A good thing too.” Rei gestured vaguely to one side of the lake, where Nagisa could just make out the shape of a dry riverbed. “Water used to come from there, when I was a child. It brought food and the lake was larger. It would have been my way out, if I ever wanted to leave. But the water stopped coming.”

Nagisa hummed and considered the path the river must have once taken. “I think that way leads up to Plonk. Maybe that’s how your river got cut off. There’s a reservoir up there now. They needed water to power machines or something, I don’t know, everyone says that the people in Plonk are crazy. But that was…” He stopped, did some quick mental math, and then stared at Rei. “They put that up...forever ago. My granddad went and helped build the wall.”

Rei tilted his head to the side. “Your point?”

“Just how old are you?”

“Ah.” Rei looked away across the lake, tentacles going still. “I lose track. It’s hard to watch the seasons pass from here.”

“Take a gander.”

Rei hunched his shoulders, folding in on himself. “Sixty? Maybe seventy?”

“Oh.” It was the only thing Nagisa could think of to reply. Rei looked pretty good for sixty. But that was a fae thing, wasn’t it? They sat there together in silence before the second natural question forced its way past his lips. “And for how long of that have you been alone?”

The tentacles begin to stir again, curling tighter to Rei’s body. Almost like a shield, Nagisa realized. “My father was the last one,” Rei whispered. “He died over fifty years ago. I miss him terribly.”

Fifty years ago. The Fae Summer. There was a story there and Nagisa did not think he wanted to know. Awkward awkward awkward. He cleared his throat and stood up. “I’m sorry. About your father. I have to get going to the market now, or I’ll definitely be late, but…”

What to think of this tentacle monster with the sad, sad eyes, left alone in this stinking, cursed lake for fifty years with nothing but snails and crawdads for company? Nagisa would just have to...interfere.

“Can I come see you again on my way home?” he asked. “It’ll just be a few days.”

Rei studied him with eyes screwed up and tentacles wrapping all the more firmly about themselves. “You’re still curious?”

“Maybe I just enjoyed talking to you.” Nagisa grinned at Rei and began to back away from the lake. “Can I?”

Rei crossed his arms and sighed. “I can’t exactly stop you.”

Nagisa took that as a yes.

 

* * *

 

Poor Rei, Nagisa thought as he led the wagon to Burgam. If Nagisa thought his world was limited, how stifling would it be to live in the same lake for fifty years?

Poor Rei, Nagisa thought at the market as he set up his stall and arranged the cheeses. Eating snails and crawdads to survive. It must have been awful when the reservoir was put up.  

Poor Rei, probably stuck in that lake until he ran out of prey and died.

Poor Rei, living in the darkness like that when he couldn’t even see well.

That was the tipping point. Nagisa closed up shop before even all his cheeses were sold and wandered the other stalls. You could buy anything at the market in Burgam.

The return trip had him jittery in his seat. He was a little more careful this time, battling through the grassland, very conscious of the bundle strapped across his back. No tripping or slipping or he might have wasted a good chunk of his personal money for no reason at all.

Rei was actually lying halfway on the beach when Nagisa finally made his way through to the lake. His arms were folded behind his head on the sand, and his tentacles floated gently in the water. He’d managed to find a stray ray of sunshine and basked in it. Napped in it, actually. He didn’t stir as Nagisa slid down onto the beach and approached. Like this, lit up by the sun with expression calm, untroubled, it was very hard to think of him as a monster. Even the tentacles didn’t seem so otherworldly. They were sort of cute, Nagisa thought, a lighter shade of purple than he’d realized, curling and twisting lazily in the water.

Nagisa unslung his bundle and placed it carefully far from the lake before sitting down as quietly as he could beside Rei, his legs joining the tentacles in the water. It _was_ very warm water, he realized. He hadn’t made that up the night he rescued Mia.

He was loathe to wake Rei up when he looked so peaceful but he needed to be home before sunset or his parents would worry. “Rei,” he said softly, and reached out to poke his cheek.

Rei’s eyes opened blearily and he turned his head towards Nagisa. “Oh, it’s you,” he mumbled sleepily. He didn’t sound quite as annoyed this time.

“I brought you something,” Nagisa whispered, rolling over onto his belly and letting his wet legs seesaw through the air. It was actually really pleasant, lying on the sun-drenched sand, if he ignored the couple of empty snail shells decorating the place. He reached for his bundle, which came undone easily when he fiddled with the knot. He sat up again to take the little box he’d been terrified of sitting on the entire wagon trip. He held it out, but Rei just sat up and stared.

“What is it?” he asked at last, sounding extremely cautious.

“A present,” Nagisa told him. “To apologize for my niece dumping crawdads on you.”

“You should be apologizing for constantly bothering me,” Rei grumbled, but took the box anyway. A tentacle casually lifted from the water and flipped the lid off. They both stared at the thing nestled inside.

“What is it?” Rei asked at last.

Nagisa clapped his hands together, grin spreading unbidden across his face. “Glasses!”

Rei blinked and peered closer. “That doesn’t help me much.”

Oh yeah. Sheltered little tentacle monster. Nagisa reached over and plucked the pair of glasses from the box. He popped them on his own face and grinned at Rei, who had gone all blurry and out of proportion. “Glasses! Apparently goblins came up with them, and it distorts the glass or something?”

“Why would I want to wear them when I already can’t see?” Rei asked bitterly, and then absolutely yelped when Nagisa flipped the glasses about and shoved them onto Rei’s nose. “A little respect for personal space would...oh!” He stared at Nagisa and adjusted the glasses just a little bit. His eyes flew wide open. “You’re not a blob.” He glanced around the lake. “The trees...the trees…” His eyes, when they returned to Nagisa, were like a child’s, full of innocent wonder. Half of that constantly sour expression had been caused by the squinting, Nagisa realized. Rei’s eyes were actually very pretty, magnified by the glasses and caught in the sunlight. There was something inhuman about them, a sheen that made them flicker like broken glass, the same shade purple as the tentacles.

“These are...very nice,” Rei admitted, tentacles wriggling. Excited, Nagisa thought. He’s excited and the tentacles give it away when he refuses to show it otherwise.

“I have another present,” he admitted, and fully laid out his little bundle. He held out his second offering.

Rei regarded it suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Cheese,” Nagisa told him. “My cheese. Everyone says it’s quite good. But it’s fine if you can’t eat it though. If you’re all fishy on the inside I don’t want you getting sick.”

“I’m not a fish!” Rei protested, and grabbed the little piece of cheese from Nagisa’s hand. He still stared at it dubiously for a moment before taking the tiniest bite in the history of mankind.

“If you’re not a fish, what are you exactly?” Nagisa asked while Rei chewed. “I’ve never heard of anything like you.”

Rei swallowed and gave Nagisa a disparaging look. “I’m fae, of course. What else could I be?” He lifted the cheese between two fingers. “This tastes interesting. I wouldn’t mind more.”

“Next time,” Nagisa assured him. “I’ll make a whole cheese just for you.”

Rei nodded, and then a tentacle lifted the cheese from his hand. Slowly, carefully, the tentacles tore the cheese into crumbly pieces. A single tentacle lifted to Rei’s face and he opened his mouth easily to accept. It was still so odd to see the human-looking part of him coexistence with the (apparently) fairy body parts. Nagisa knew he was staring and that it was rude, but the complete absurdity of the situation had caught up to him. What was he doing, bringing food and presents to the monster in the lake? He should be focused on the farm, on helping to raise his nieces and nephews, on taking the wares to Burgam to sell. But Rei was so beyond the narrow scope of his life, a taste of the adventure he’d dreamed of as a kid, and now, he knew, he wouldn’t be able to let go. The forest had always called to him. Here was the reason.

“I got you a trout too,” he added, and took the last item from his bundle. “It’s smoked, but I didn’t want to ride with raw fish, so I hope you can still eat it. If you can eat cheese I think smoked trout is probably okay too.” He held the trout out and a tentacle snapped out to take it from him. He startled, and Rei went a little pink in the cheeks.

“Sorry. I must take some getting used to.”

“Well, you’re the first fairy I’ve ever known.” Nagisa shrugged a shoulder. “There are stranger ones. Like bogles. Or kelpies.”

The trout disappeared into the curl of a tentacle while Rei continued with his cheese. “How am I the first fairy you’ve met? You might know nothing of magic but surely your village can’t be so remote you wouldn’t be home to some brownies, at least?”

Oh dear. Sheltered little fae.

“You...really don’t know what’s happened outside this lake, do you?”

A tentacle paused in midair and Rei turned back to Nagisa, eyebrows knitted. “That doesn’t sound...that doesn’t sound like you’re about to tell me good news.”

Nagisa dragged a finger through the sand. “Faerie folk all live up north now. It was...a consequence.”

“A consequence?” Rei repeated, and Nagisa nodded.

“Have you heard of iron? Or did your kind come to live here before the forges were built?”

Rei’s gaze was immediately drawn to the sand. “I know of iron. It hurts my kind.”

Nagisa ground the sand between his fingers, looking across the lake instead of at Rei, both of them carefully avoiding each other’s gaze. “It hurts all fae. Nobody really knows why. But humans use it all the time. In our buildings and our horseshoes and now they’re even talking about big iron tracks to transport things from one city to another. But if you were born here, you probably didn’t see a lot of that.”

He chanced a glance at Rei, who nodded a little. “I was very ignorant of what was happening. But I was still a child, so I should try not to be so hard on myself.”

“Oh, I still can’t get anyone to tell me the full story. I wasn’t even close to born yet.” Nagisa sighed. “But I guess that soon after humans started producing iron, a couple of elves tried to attack the forges and things...well, I don’t think anyone meant for it to get out of control the way it did.” This was the stomach-churning part, the part that made him ashamed to be human. Why nobody ever wanted to talk about the Fae Summer.

“What happened?” Rei asked after a quiet moment.

“I don’t know a lot of details,” Nagisa admitted. “The elves who attacked the forges were locked up and then I know that other elves started going after...going after human babies, and they were probably just angry and stupid. And then humans who were also angry and stupid responded with...with nets and iron collars and...I guess you can still see the scorch marks in places.” He dug his fingers viciously into the sand. “And then it wasn’t just the elves. Humans started attacking all fae. It didn’t matter what kind. And the fae fought back. We call it the Fae Summer.”

“Fae Summer,” Rei repeated, tone wooden, and Nagisa nodded.

“Fae Summer. Most fae now live in camps up north, in the mountains. They’re not allowed to be free. And...well, I know that this happened because nobody ever wants to talk about it, I know that a lot of fae were killed…”

“Old magic,” Rei said, tentacles tucking into themselves. “Blood magic.” It took Nagisa a moment to remember when Rei said that before, and then he buried his face in his hands.

“Your father?” he asked.

“Everyone but me,” Rei corrected quietly. “Killed by men in red. I watched myself as these woods turned dark. It’s old, old magic, brought on by many lives taken on the same soil. Or silt, in this case.”

Nagisa chewed on the inside of his cheek, digesting that bit of information. If Rei was telling the truth—and Nagisa couldn’t think of a reason for Rei to lie about this—the woods would have turned dark _after_ the Fae Summer. Children hadn’t always been told to stay away from the water the way Nagisa had just naturally assumed. Which probably meant that every member of the village old enough to remember had seen the curse grow, had watched a perfectly wood turn dark with old blood magic.  

Nagisa shivered. They knew what had happened there. They weren’t afraid of any monster. They were afraid of ghosts.

“I’m so sorry, Rei,” Nagisa mumbled, and curled his knees up to his chest to hide his face. They sat in silence for a few moments, and then something slimy bumped Nagisa’s arm. He peered out to the side and found a tentacle offering him a piece of cheese. With a smile, he took it. It was a little gooey, but any peace offering at this point was incredibly welcome. He popped the cheese in his mouth and swallowed. And gagged.

“Your slime tastes gross.”

“Well, you probably taste gross too!” Rei snapped back immediately. But then his brow creased and he shrunk back into himself. “Are the men in red still out there?”

Nagisa shrugged one shoulder. “I guess? I saw one in Burgam once. There are still fae left in hiding, and the Red Men are supposed to find them. Hey, so…” He had to know for sure. Maybe...maybe there was a chance his village wasn’t as guilty as he’d assumed. “Did humans know that your kind were here?”

Rei shrugged as well, almost like he was trying to copy Nagisa. “I remember seeing a few humans before the...the Red Men? Before the Red Men came.”

“They visited you here?”

“My kind lived in these woods for centuries and we can’t survive for long without water. So yes, I would assume so.” Another shrug.

Nagisa felt physically ill. Not only would his village have known of the slaughter that took place here, they would have known Rei’s people. They would have known Rei’s people were here and done nothing to stop the Red Men. And then a child was left to grow alone, the last of his kind, as the forest around him grew cursed on old magic.

How could Nagisa have grown up with such a bloody secret hidden behind the old ones’ eyes? His grandmother? His grandfather? Had they both known? Had they been some of the ones to travel into the forest and meet Rei’s kind?

His father? His father who had been so young, but could have so easily known of the tentacled folk in the woods and how they suddenly disappeared over the course of one brutal season.

“Hey! This is my home!” Rei complained when Nagisa flipped over onto his hands and knees, but it was only a dry heave. He couldn’t even properly vomit. After a moment, Rei’s human hand reached out and patted between Nagisa’s shoulder blades. “It’s alright. I can’t blame you if you weren’t born yet. Besides, it’s...like you said…” His voice trailed off until Nagisa turned his head to look. “Sometimes fae fought back,” he finished with a pained smile. And then he brightened. “These glasses are really something! I can see your face so much better now!”

Nagisa let himself slide down into the sand once more. “I’m glad you like them. I can bring you more things. What things do you like?”

Rei’s odd glassy eyes shone. “Sparkly things!” Nagisa bit back a laugh. Rei had sounded like such a child for a moment there.

“Okay, next time I’m at the market, I’ll bring back sparkly things. And a whole cheese. And fish.” Nagisa stood and brushed off his knees. He would have liked to stay longer, but if he wasn’t back in the village by nightfall it would make his mother fret. He smiled down at Rei and all his writhing tentacles. “I’m getting used to you very fast.”

Rei turned away slightly, two tentacles splish-splashing nervously in the edge of the water. “I’ve gotten used to being alone. But you might not be so bad. As long as you bring cheese.”

Nagisa laughed and turned to begin his climb up away from the lake. Just before he seized a sapling to pull himself up, he paused and looked back. “Rei? I know you’re fae, but what kind exactly? Are you a fairy of some sort?”

Rei made a scoffing sound. “A fairy? Please. I’m an octofata.”

“Octofata,” Nagisa repeated to himself, and started to climb. Rei the last octofata. He turned back one last time to wave goodbye, and even though Rei just adjusted his glasses, those treacherous little tentacles waved enthusiastically back for him.

Okay, so maybe the tentacles were a little cute.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Regular updates for this story should begin in mid to late January, so you can subscribe to this fic to know when that starts!  
> Thank you anonymous prompter for your suggestion of tentacles, I kind of took it and ran with it~


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